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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22690966">Instant chemistry</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/distractionpie/pseuds/distractionpie'>distractionpie</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Jearmintines, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Scenting, supressants</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 10:13:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,684</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22690966</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/distractionpie/pseuds/distractionpie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>While most of his peers had already presented, Armin had never felt left behind. A life without the messy instincts of an alpha, beta, or omega was one that he was quite comfortable with.<br/>But that maturity can't be avoided forever, and when he's surprised by his presentation he receives an unexpected comfort and resolves to better understand this new development.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Armin Arlert/Jean Kirstein</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>54</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Instant chemistry</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>To avoid disappointment - this is really sort of pre-relationshippy and stops more than concludes, see endnotes for more details.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“Did you really not know?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Armin shook his head. He hadn’t even been thinking about it. Eren and Mikasa had both presented young, right around the time Mikasa had come to live with the Jaegers, and it had more than once been speculated that the presence of two powerful and protective alphas was keeping him from experiencing any event that might trigger the rush of hormones that kick started presentation but he’d also long ago decided he didn’t care. Watching the way his comrades had presented and struggled to master the new instincts and heightened sense had always made it seem like more of an inconvenience than anything to be envied.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry then.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What did Jean have to be sorry for? It had been strange for all of them: nothing had seemed at all out of the ordinary, until Armin suddenly started growling at Eren of all people over dinner. “It was a surprise, that’s all,” Armin said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not to me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jean grimaced, looking down at his boots. “After we got Eren back from Reiner and Bertholdt I was covered with a scent that was like alpha but not quite.” He shrugged. “It wasn’t hard to figure out who it came from, when you were the one who carried me out of the battle. You really didn’t sense anything? I assumed you knew and just didn’t say anything because... well... ”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That long ago? Armin frowned. How hadn’t he noticed the changes? Even now, after the incident with Eren and a swab from his scent glands to confirm the sudden suspicion, he could hardly believe it. He’d felt different to how he once had, but he’d put the change down to his experiences, had assumed it was the maturity of battle experience. He’d never even thought about physically maturing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think you were the only one not surprised,” Armin remarked. “Of course, I guess I had to present at some point, but alpha is a shock. I’m almost tempted to ask Hange to re-run the test.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Really?” Jean raised his eyebrows. “That’s pointless. The test is just confirms what anybody using their nose can already tell. And I never got involved in the trainee betting pool, it would have been unfair, but you were pretty clearly alpha leaning, even as a cadet.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Was this some strange attempt at kindness? Because nobody had ever suggested that about him before. His build, his features, his mannerisms, even his choice of friends had most people predicting him an omega dynamic and while the label had never felt right to him, he’d assumed that meant he’d settle as a beta. More people agreed with him on that now, with the way he’d grown into himself as a scout, but Jean was suggesting he’d been thinking back in their cadet days, even with how Armin had so often struggled to keep up with the strength of his classmates. “Even with how reserved I was, and sticking so close to Eren and Mikasa...?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Exactly,” Jean said. “Two strong presented alphas treating you as a leader? Super obvious.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Huh. Every time it had come up before, people had suggested Armin was unconsciously drawn to alphas as protective figures. Nobody had ever suggested that they might have felt an unconscious draw to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I suppose you have a point,” Armin admitted. Perhaps he’d been thinking too much through the lens of stereotypes of alphas and omegas – though he wouldn’t have guessed Jean to be the kind of person with progressive interpretations of what traits were tied to presentation. “Still I’m surprised you were so sure in identifying it, when nobody else was. Even Eren and Mikasa didn’t, and they’re both around me all the time and have had time to master their presented senses.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jean said nothing, but his face had twisted into another grimace.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What is it?” Armin asked. Was there something else about himself that had given it away without him noticing?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So have I,” Jean admitted. “The second part, I mean, about having time to be familiar with an adult sense of scent. I just... I presented really early actually, so I went on suppressants because it was too much before the rest of my body had caught up. And then it was easier to just stay on them, though since all the shit with the MPs went down I’ve had to start cutting my doses because supply has gone to hell.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That would certainly explain how badly he and Eren had clashed in the beginning, two young alphas not yet completely used to their instincts bringing out the worst reactions in each other, although it made Jean’s youthful interest in Mikasa all the more noteworthy -- alpha-alpha attraction and couplings weren’t overly unusual but to be so upfront about going against dynamic was unusual in someone so young.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He's never noticed anything unusual about Jean’s scent before, and for a moment Armin wondered if not knowing was another consequence of being late to maturing, but if Jean were on suppressants then nobody would have been able to tell, let alone with the limited senses of an unpresented adolescent. If anything, Jean seemed uncomfortable with sharing the information. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is it… are you.. were you keeping it a secret on purpose?” Armin asked, because he could understand the temptation of suppressants if Jean had been acting like some of their classmates had when their presentations had first hit, but continuing to use suppressants long after the point where his hormones must have levelled out and not even mentioning that he was presented seemed baffling. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Marco and I shared a bunk,” Jean reminded him. “Even with the suppressants, you can’t mask everything when you spend time that close. And I had to have an awkward as fuck conversation with Milieus when he presented and freaked the fuck out about it. I guess some of the others might have known or figured something was up, it was embarrassing to be having to take suppressants to manage being fully presented when everybody else was still only just starting to show signs, but I couldn’t really hide the pills when we were out on exercises. And it's in my records. It was never a real secret, but you remember all the drama people used to make about who presented how...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He does. The gossip and speculation had been incessant and so much of it was based around childish understandings of dynamics, Armin can’t fault Jean for not wanting to expose himself to that, not when he remembers how drastically some people’s behaviour changed towards Eren and Mikasa after learning they’d presented early. “I didn’t know you and Milieus were that friendly,” he remarked instead, because prying into why Jean kept using suppressants long after adolescent attitudes had ceased to be an issue would be almost as obnoxious as the reactions he’d clearly been trying to avoid by taking them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jean shrugged again. “There weren’t that many omega guys in our class,” he remarked. “And it’s different for girls. He needed to talk to somebody who actually understood, not just hearsay or sanitised information from the instructors.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Armin nodded. It was a sensible viewpoint. But how could Jean’s early presentation as an alpha help in relate to Milieus’ normal timed presentation as an omega?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Unless…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jean had never said he’d presented as an alpha, it has just seemed obvious. But that was by the same metric which had their fellow cadets claiming that Armin was bound to be an omega, and he’d spent enough time among presented adults now to understand that instincts like alpha command and omega nurturing didn’t always manifest in the obvious ways one might predict. If Armin could be an alpha who lead with his brain rather than the traditional brute strength, then was it so strange for Jean to be an omega who showed his care for others with via the tough love approach of seeing to what was needed even if it wasn’t always wanted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was no reason that Jean’s personality couldn’t fit somebody presented as an omega, and most physical signs would have been masked by his suppressants and even those which slipped through wouldn’t have been detectable to somebody with the limited senses of a youth, although perhaps Armin would be able to find some notes of omega now that his own nose was strengthen by his presentation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jean never smelled like much of anything that he could remember, the scent Armin associated with him is the muted one of the unpresented --or suppressed-- and his fellow cadets, the familiar mix they all shared from sitting close at meals and brushing up against each other in training. If Armin were more experienced perhaps he could have picked out his own maturing scent from those of their peers but as it was although he thought that perhaps there was something he hasn’t noticed before in Jean’s scent, it might simply have been the product of imaging a detail now he knew that there was something that might be different if his senses were stronger or Jean’s suppressants weaker.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Uh… Armin…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He flushed, jumping back, with a sudden realisation that he’d slipped from thinking about Jean’s scent to seeking it out. He couldn’t deny that he was curious, but what would have been normal among unpresented adolescents took on new meaning now that he was an alpha… especially if Jean’s early presentation had been as an omega.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“S-sorry,” he blurted out. “I didn’t… I wasn’t—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Whatever,” Jean huffed, waving away the apology. “If you’ve just become aware of presenting then you’re gonna have the impulse to try and relearn everybody’s scents. You should probably rein it in though, people got away with being overfamiliar in training because most of you were in the same boat, but if you start sniffing around Captain Levi he’ll probably assign you so many cleaning duties you’ll never be about to smell anything but bleach again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His expression must have betrayed his horror, not so much at the cleaning but at the thought of his hormones driving him to attempt something so ridiculous with the Captain, because Jean laughed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> “I... honestly I’ve never thought about that stuff,” Armin admitted. “I mean, I know what’s polite and about how instincts work, but growing up around Eren and Mikasa...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, they’re pretty... non-traditional,” Jean replied, a little uncomfortably. But then he shook his head. “You’ll be fine. After all, any bad habits you can just say you learned from them. Anybody would totally believe it of Eren and who’s going to pick a fight with Mikasa?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s right, but that doesn’t mean Armin shouldn’t try to behave well. Starting with how he’s been with Jean. He doesn’t think knowing about his presentation would have changed any of the ways he’s acted towards Jean, saving his life was more important than any notions of modesty or boundaries, but Armin recalled how strange it was as a child, to be exposed to too many unfamiliar scents and he knows that after presenting sensitivity increased and adults tended to be fussy about the scents they allowed near them, never mind on them. He’d guessed it must have been awkward for Jean, recovering from his concussion and covered in Armin’s scent, but knowing now that he was doing so as a fully developed omega and had recognised what Armin had spilled all over him as alpha scent -- under any other circumstances it would be a violation, and even with the extenuating situation...</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jean, about you recognising my scent because I got it all over you,” he began. For him to have covered Jean like that as an accident between friends was awkward, but from an alpha to an omega... well, not knowing is the only excuse he has for not apologising it at the time but, if Jean had thought that Armin was aware of his presentation and close enough that if he’d had a better grip of his senses then he ought to have recognised Jean as an omega because even suppressants couldn’t cover everything in the extremes of battle -- he must have thought Armin at best horribly rude to have overstepped so thoroughly and not even acknowledge it. “I’m sorry about that. It couldn’t be helped but—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t make it weird,” Jean cut him off, though there’s a hint of a flush to his cheeks that suggested he wasn’t as indifferent to the implications as he was asking Armin to be. “It’s like Shadis said in all those awful lectures on dynamics -- we’re soldiers first. And I knew you would have had anybody’s back like that, that wasn’t an alpha-omega thing, even more so if you really didn’t know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s true that he would have had a duty to defend any fellow human, but he doesn’t think he’d have held a stranger so closely, felt such a personal panic that must surely have leaked through into the scent he’d covered Jean with. Armin grits his teeth. He’s so newly presented he doesn’t even know exactly what his own alphahood smells like, but even unpresented he’d been able to recognise the difference between Eren and Mikasa’s intense personal care for him and the general responsibility of an unknown comrade. That can’t have felt neutral to Jean. No more than the memory feels neutral to Armin now that he knows. Jean is an omega who he has protected and while it hadn’t been a matter of instincts at the time, now that he knows there’s some primal part of him, the same part of him that had growled at Eren when he...</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d growled at Eren for shoving Jean in order to make space at the table.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was true that it had been Armin's unofficial responsibility to keep Eren's manners in line ever since they were kids, but he'd never gone that far before. Even without knowing Jean was an omega, Armin's protective instincts had flared – was in defence of the unconscious claim he’d made on the other boy by protecting and unintentionally scenting him? Could it be that he’d been subconsciously drawn to Jean as an omega even before knowing? But he wasn’t sure it was true. All signs pointed to the fact that his presentation had kicked in a while ago and he just hadn’t recognised it for what it was until now, but he hadn’t felt any particular change in his feelings towards the known omegas in the corps, and with Jean taking suppressants there was no way he could have identified that even on a subconscious level, until his adult senses kicked in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jean wrinkled his nose, and now Armin was so focused on his scent he could detect the way it changed, though he lacked the experience to interpret the shift.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can smell you thinking,” he complained. “Stop it. It’s fine. I know it was an accident, I’m not going to get all weird and needy about it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Armin had been more concerned that Jean would think he was overstepping, it was hard to imagine Jean doing anything that fit the stereotype of an omega clinging to whatever alpha offered them protection.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m…” not sorry. Jean had already complained once about his apologies, and he couldn’t be sorry for saving Jean’s life. But he regretted this confusing footing they’d now found themselves on, as Jean seemed determined to dismiss everything that had happened between them as an inconsequential accident just because Armin hadn’t been fully presented, while he struggled with confusing urges building in Armin’s chest that demanded he finish what he’d inadvertently started. “This is all so strange.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jean shrugged. “You’ll get used to it. And we’re more than our instincts, nothing has really changed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hasn’t it? Armin took a deep breath, catching Jean’s frustrating non-scent once again. There was nothing he could do now, while still overwhelmed by the day’s discoveries, but once he’d had time to master all his new senses and learn to distinguish impulse from instinct, then perhaps they could have this conversation and perhaps next time he scented Jean it would be with intent.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I began with a much bigger concept in which Armin was unwittingly provoking instincts in Jean who was trying to play it cool because he knew Armin wasn’t doing it on purpose but also goddamn that’s some good alpha-alpha shit there and all of his instincts are into it, but god knows when I’d have finished that so when the omegaverse prompt came up I decided to clean up what I already had and count it as a test run on this character combo (since technically I wrote this before tuesday's fic) - lesson learned: armin is hard to write as a main and I probably shouldn’t have started with an au so character focused but hey</p></blockquote></div></div>
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